Maternity, nursing and some pre/post-operative surgical/medical brassieres generally share the feature of having a central panel in one or both of the brassiere cups that is in the form of a flap that may be peeled back at an edge to expose the wearer's corresponding breast. For maternity and nursing brassieres this facilitates suckling of the infant and for surgical/medical brassieres this facilitates treatment of the breast whether preceding or following biopsy, partial mastectomy or other procedure.
In maternity brassieres simple clips have been used for many years to detachably secure the apex/leading edge of the panel closed. These clips are generally of hook and eye type with a hook at the apex of the panel to engage in an eye on the bra's shoulder strap. A problem common to the majority of such brassieres is that they do not have flexibility to accommodate for the substantial changes in breast size and shape that occur in lactating mothers or as a result of surgery or other breast tissue damage/trauma. In mothers who breastfeed their babies the breast expands substantially when full with milk, swelling to even go up a whole cup size, and then shrinking again once the mother has fed her baby. In essence half of the time these mothers are wearing the wrong cup size of bra—either the bra is too big or too small, since there is no way to adjust the size of the cups.
Proposals have been made in the past to try to address this problem, including multi-point fastening arrangements as set out in US patents numbers U.S. Pat. No. 2,317,664 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,390,024. Each of these patents proposes use of several eyes arranged in a line up the shoulder strap of the brassiere to be selectively engaged by a hook at the apex of the central panel/flap. The choice of eye gives the user the ability to raise or lower the point at which the apex of the flap is secured to the strap and hence adjusts for enlargement or diminution of the breast. The perimeter of the cups in U.S. Pat. No. 4,390,024 is defined by wide stretchable bands to give greater elastic accommodation for the flux in breast size.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an improved brassiere of the type where the cups are openable/adjustable and which substantially alleviates the problems of fluctuating breast size. It is a further object to provide a brassiere which gives the user control over adjustment for fluctuating breast size independently of attaching the opening flap/panel of the brassiere cup to the brassiere shoulder strap. It is a further object to provide a brassiere which gives the user a relatively fine control over adjustment. The improved brassiere is to have an adjust-to-fit component to raise the bra cup up and down the bra strap and which may provide a better quality, continually supportive, and more comfortable maternity bra to the market.